A/N: I felt compelled to write something when I saw the promo for "We, the Juries". Then the episode just fueled the fire and this is what came of it. It will be a multi-chapter story and includes Alicia, Cary, Will, and Kalinda. I have yet to decide if it will become a romance, but there is a chance it could. You all will have to give me input. Happy Reading!

Cary

I didn't expect her to show up at the bar. Yes, I know that she wanted to talk, apologize. But I couldn't deal with her betrayal. I'm starting to understand Will's warpath against our firm, well more so against Alicia than the firm. Kalinda's betrayal wasn't of the same magnitude as Alicia's betrayal of Will, but it still hurt. In the courthouse, I told her that I forgive her. But I'm not sure if I actually do. When she showed up at my apartment, after their fiasco in front of the head of the Paisley group, she wanted drinks. Only drinks. I have missed her company. I have missed her. I ended up going. I still can't determine if that was a good or bad idea. But I went.

Now I'm sitting in a different bar. After our client took the plea of four years, with a chance out probation in two, I ended up here. I knew that something was wrong with Alicia, more than Will the Crusader. Something wrong, life altering wrong.

"Hey." She said, collapsing onto the bar chair next to me.

I give her a slight smile, "for you." I say and slide the tequila shot over to her. I watch as she smiles and downs it, then sucks on the lime wedge.

"Very much needed. Thank you Cary."

"You looked like you needed it." I grin wickedly, as she sits there staring at me with her mouth agape, trying hard not to laugh. Signaling the bartender for two more shots, I watch as she recovers. "It's been a long day, hasn't it?"

She nodded emphatically. "That's why this was needed." She smile slightly, but it never reached her eyes. Rarely these days did it reach to light up her eyes. I remember the first year at Lockhart Gardner, and even though we were competing there were times where I saw the smile that would light up her entire face, eyes included. Usually happened when around Will, but at a few other instances too.

I reach for the tequila shot. "We're making it. We really are." I raise my shot up in the air and then knock it back. It burns as it goes down. I cough at the sensation. "I don't understand how you and Kalinda can stand those shots."

She flinched as I said her former friend's name, she wasn't expecting it. But then stayed silent.

"When did we become dysfunctional Cary? We said we would work as a team. We have on some things, but on others… you have gone behind my back, invited Peter before I could speak to him and to top it sent a mass email announcing the Governor's attendance."

I rest against the back of the chair for support. I knew that I shouldn't have done it but the firm was at the point where we needed that publicity of sorts. We needed responses to the Holiday party. We wouldn't have been able to survive against Lockhart Gardner's holiday party on the same night, especially when they can afford to throw money around like it's nothing. I keep thinking, but none of this sounds right for a response. Yes, these thoughts justify why I did it, but it's not what she wants to hear and I know that.

"There's a chance that Peter will be under investigation." Her voice is so quiet that I think I have missed what she said. She is looking around the bar, it's a new place that I thought we could meet at, one that neither of us have been to before. She looks back at me expectantly, but I'm starting to think that I really did miss what she said. "Let's go talk elsewhere, there's too many people here." I nod. We both get off the chairs, and I place some bills on the bar top and follow her out into the early evening hours.

We are walking side by side on the sidewalk in silence, I'm unsure of where we are going, but I let her lead the way. I'm trying to wrack my brain to see if I caught any of what she said. To have any insight as to the conversation we are in for when we reach a quiet place. A few blocks down, I realize that we are close to her apartment. I continue thinking to myself about the possible conversation, but I only draw up blanks. I had missed what she said. We reach her building and she's still quiet, too quiet for my liking. In the elevator I take the chance to glance over at her, her brows are knit together and she's biting her bottom lip; she thinking. She probably doesn't even know how to explain whatever it is she need to, to me. She doesn't realize that I am watching her, until the elevator dings, announcing our arrival at her floor.

Before she opens the door, she turns towards me. "My kids will be here. I need to have a conversation with them first before we can talk. I just don't want them to overhear us and become angry that I didn't tell them."

I'm confused as hell, the alcohol that I had isn't helping but I find myself nodding.

She opens the door and walks in, shouting out a hello to her kids. I take a look around, I've been here numerous times, we were working out of here for the first month of our firm start up. Nothing has changed. She drops her belonging on a chair in the foyer and calls her kids out into the living room. "Cary, you can make yourself comfortable. I don't care if you hear; you'll be hearing it soon enough anyways. There's wine in the fridge."

I watched as she didn't wait for my answer to turn around and join her kids in the living room. I stay there for a second. I catch Grace eyeing me, so I smile at her then make my way into the kitchen. Grabbing two wine glasses off the shelf, I open the fridge and grab the already opened white and replace it in the fridge after I've poured two glasses. I'm not paying attention to the conversation that she's having with her children, but I do wander in and hand her one of the wine glasses, to which she smiles her thanks.

Back in the kitchen, I slide onto the chair and pull out my phone. Now that I'm not doing anything, I can't help but overhear.

"Zach, there is a chance that you will have to testify as to what you saw in the voting center. I asked your father to make sure he does what he can to fix it so that you won't have testify again, but I don't know…"

"What does this mean? Will dad be going back to jail?"

"I don't know Grace. If he was involved in the scheme of placing this ballot box in that precinct, then it is election fraud which holds 2-5 years in prison. I wanted the two of you to hear it from me before it gets out. I have to talk with Cary about this and I can't do it anywhere public."

I hear movement around the living room, but I just sit there, checking email on my phone and sipping some wine.

"How much did you hear?"

I glance up. "Not too much, 2-5 years in prison for election fraud." I give a slight smirk; now knowing where this conversation was going.

She stands in front of the open fridge. I'm assuming she's looking for something to eat. "Frozen pizza or pasta and sauce."

I shrug, knowing that she is stalling, trying to work up the words to explain the situation. "Either work for me."

She grabs two boxes from the freezer, placing them on the cook top before preheating the oven.

"Marilyn, Peter's ethics advisor, called me in today asking if I had any knowledge of a video of a campaign worker placing a rigged ballot box into a voting center. A ballot box that Diane, Will and I worked to be disallowed in the poll count."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. When I was working for Peter in the State's Attorney office, he was running a clean office—although he didn't want to fire me or accept my resignation when he heard that I had a relationship with another ASA. "Why were you arguing to disallow the ballot box?"

"Zach noticed that the ballot box was overstuffed and the first few seemed to have been stuffed with ballots for Kresteva. Low and behold, we find out that there were around 26,000 votes in there for Peter and under 3,000 for Kresteva. That's when we started fighting for it to be allowed."

"And it looks bad that Peter's son is the one that found it and you are one of the lawyers." I finally made the link. This could hurt us.

"This is why I was asking the question about how we became dysfunctional. I didn't want to rely on Peter's professional support for the firm in case something like this were to occur."

My mind is at it again, running through the problem, trying to assess the damage it could cause us. "Did he know about the box?" I watched as she leaned against the counter and shrugged. My mind started again, thinking of a way to possibly figure out how damaging this could be to us if an investigation does commence. "Did Will and Diane discover anything about a video that night?"

She froze. She wasn't even breathing. Though I could tell that she was thinking. She started biting her bottom lip again. "Not to my knowledge but they did have Kalinda working on it."

We were silent. Neither of us wanted to say anything. Alicia stood there leaning against the counter, still biting her lip until there her phone started to buzz on the counter. Her eyes flickered to it. She pushed off the counter and went to answer it. I was sitting there with my phone in front of me wondering if I would be able to get Kalinda to talk about the video. I opened up the text thread that consisted of several texts from her, many of which I didn't respond to. Come over to Alicia's. Bring tequila, we'll need it. I stared at the text, unsure whether to send it. I can hear Alicia speaking on the phone; it sounded as though she was trying hard to stay calm. My finger hovers over the send button. I don't want her to know what this is about before coming over, in case she gives a tip to Will or Diane.